Book Prize Winner

Rowan has won a copy of Heartwood (by another Rowan – Rowan Reid) and we’re sure he and his son Lachy will enjoy it.

His fantastic response to last month’s question “Who is your environmental hero?” is below:

My environmental hero is my 25 year old son Lachy.

He made a commitment many years ago to discover how we humans can live lightly on our earth and then to implement that in his own life. He started by becoming a vegan many years ago and has ‘encouraged’ many others to do same. He has completed an environmental science degree and is currently adding a degree in anthropology because he has realised that it’s the human ecologies that are either harmful, benign or regenerative to our earth’s natural systems – we choose. He has travelled to far flung corners of the globe (yes, in a carbon gushing aircraft) to volunteer on Permaculture farms including a 700 year old in organic goat dairy farm in Scotland. While he was studying in Canada, we decided to walk the West Coast Trail, a famously gruelling long distance coastal walk in British Colombia – made even tougher because he would not walk on the rock shelves for fear of stepping on any living crustaceans – so we trudged through deep soft sand for days while the other walkers breezed past us. Over the past couple of years he has been growing and planting native plants in Melbourne’s western suburbs and has helped us plant over 1000 trees at our little Winchelsea farm. He regularly challenges me on the things I say and do, which is a bit annoying at times but always interesting and insightful.

I love it when people stand up for what they believe in. Young people need to do more of that – it’s their world more than ours now…

ABC Interview with Rowan Reid

You can hear more from Rowan Reid from a recent interview on ABC Radio Melbourne’s Conversation Hour.